"Well, Grizzly evidently turned, for, while my Guide was looking for him in one direction, he bounced out not ten yards from the Cayuse from a totally different quarter. This rather startled Eagle Child; and, though he should have known better, he dug the silly spurs into his erratic tempered Horse, with the result that the latter balked—bucked up like a stubborn mule.
"This looked as though he meant to stop and fight it out—the Grizzly evidently thought so, for he gave a snort of rage and tore down the mountain full at his enemy. I dared not shoot for fear of striking my comrade; but one bullet wouldn't have mattered, anyway; it wouldn't have stopped the charging Grizzly. Luckily for Eagle Child, his Horse reared just as the Bear arrived, and though he was sent flying, Muskwa's cousin did not succeed in clawing him, his time being taken up in making little pieces of the Horse. Eagle Child arrived at the foot of the mountain very rapidly, for all this had happened at the top of a long shale cut bank, and he did not look for smooth paths, but just came away without regard to the means of transport."
"And is that all of the tale?" inquired Magh, with a rather disappointed air, for she had hoped to hear of Muskwa's getting the worst of the encounter.
"Not by any means," answered Sa'-zada; "that was but the beginning. My comrade being out of the way," he continued, "I fired at Grizzly."
"THE GRIZZLY ... BOUNCED OUT NOT TEN YARDS FROM THE CAYUSE."
"To kill him?" exclaimed Mooswa, reproachfully.
"That was before I was comrade to the Jungle Dwellers," apologized the Keeper—"before I knew they were more interesting alive than dead. And I fear I struck him, too," he added, "for when he had finished knocking the Horse to pieces we saw him go up the side of the Camel's Back limping as though a leg had been broken."